Celebrity

A world famous celebrity came to Manchester.


She was perfect and exactly the same on TV.


I was happy to take a nice photo of her.

The Japanese Garden

I went to Tatton Park. There was the Japanese Garden. I usually complain about “the Japanese Garden” in foreign countries. However this one was really beautiful. I could feel Japan. Now I miss Japan.

My Japanese

I had a cup of tea with my three Japanese friends and one British friend. The British friend asked us “What do you call salmon in Japanese?”
I answered “しゃけ syake”. Then one of my Japanese friends told me, “Eriko-san Syake is Kansai-ben.”

Eeeee?? I always called “salmon as しゃけ” in Japan. In standard Japanese it should be called “さけ sake”. In my excuse I’ve never lived outside of Kansai area in Japan. I did my best to speak standard Japanese in Manchester however all Japanese friends noticed I’m from Osaka. I need to learn standard Japanese.

Gee

The Olympics started in Beijing. I’m following it on TV. I can watch canoeing, sailing, cycling, equestrian and boxing almost every day. These are not what I wanted to watch. I could watch swimming, athletics and gymnastics as well. I’m watching it carefully so I don’t miss watching the Japanese athletes. Whenever I heard “Japanese” from TV, I came back in front of TV and kept watching. I could easily check the result by Internet but it was difficult to watch them on TV. I looked forward to watching baseball games, but no baseball games have been broadcasted here till now.

The topic of my English class was also about the Olympics. Each of us said the name of events in Olympics. I said “Judo”. The teacher asked us “what do they wear when they play it? What’s it called?” I thought “Judo uniform” in my mind. It was direct translation from “Judo-gi” in Japanese. I was not sure so I kept silent. Then some Spanish class mates answered “kimono”. Although I didn’t know what it’s called, I was sure it was different from “kimono”. All Japanese class mates shook our heads. The answer was “gi”. The word came from Japanese, but I didn’t know the word. I never heard of it. I checked my dictionary and found “gi” as “Judo-gi or Karate-gi”. Gee I didn’t know it. I asked about the word to my American friend and she didn’t know it. It might be British English.

By the way if I search ALC web dictionary, I knew “Judo-gi” was called “kimono” in France and some other European countries.

Are We Changed?

The weather was extremely hot in Dubai. I thought the hot weather in Dubai might affect my personality.

When I went shopping at the market, I bought some souvenirs. They didn’t put prices on each item so I asked for the price one by one. I bought three items, which were priced at 10, 15 and 20 dirham. After wrapping these three items, the clerk asked me to pay 55 dirham in total. I noticed he was cheating me. However, outside was over 43℃ and I didn’t have the motivation to quarrel about 10 dirham (300yen). I knew if I didn’t complain about the price, they might keep cheating Japanese customers. For the future Japanese customers, I might have to correct them. However I couldn’t speak up about it. I paid 55 dirham and even said “thank you” to them and left the shop.

The other day, I went to a tourist’s place to get a typical souvenir. A calligrapher wrote tourists’ names on paper in Arabic. I had an idea that I would ask for my name and my husband’s name on to be written one paper. The price showed 30 dirham for one sheet. However the calligrapher told me, “If these were two persons’ names, it would cost 60 dirham.” At that time, I felt “not again.” I said “if it cost 60 dirham, I wouldn’t ask you to write it.” Then he said, “30 dirham is OK.”

I could imagine my personality would be changed if I lived in Dubai for a year. When I spoke about this to my friend, she said, “Well done!” We spoke about her life in Dubai and my life in Manchester for a while. And she asked me, “Do you think my personality has changed?” I thought about it for a while and answered, “No, I don’t think so.” I actually didn’t feel that we hadn’t met for a year. I also asked, “By the way, do you think I’ve changed after living in Manchester for a year?” She said “No, not at all.” immediately. We might use different aspects of our personality in foreign countries however the very basic personality wouldn’t be changed easily.

Arabian Nights

One of the interesting things to do in Dubai was going to the desert and riding on a camel. I could register for “the Desert tour” at the hotel reception. I went to make the reservation with my friend, but I hesitated to join the tour. I had two choices: joining the tour alone, or not going. My friend had work and she wouldn’t come with me. A receptionist told me, “Don’t hesitate to join the tour, you’re not the only person who would go to the desert. There are many people who will join the tour. You could make friends there.” If it was just two or three hours sightseeing at the desert, I could join it easily. However the tour was half a day long and included a BBQ dinner at the desert. I was worried that if I were all alone it would be long and lonely. My friend told me, “If you wanted to go to the desert, you should join the tour.” After consideration, my desire to go to the desert won to all my worrying about the tour. Finally I decided to join it.

On the day of the tour, I was nervous until the tour guide/driver picked me up at the hotel. He was kind and recommended me to sit in the front seat. He stopped by two other hotels and picked up five other passengers. One of them was an arrogant man and he insisted on sitting in the front seat. The driver could have asked me to move to the back seat, but he refused the request from the arrogant man. After an hour driving, our car stopped at a small shop and took a break. When I was back at the car, the arrogant man took the front seat. I actually didn’t care to sit in the back seat but I disliked his attitude. He didn’t ask me to change the seat but just sat in the front seat. When the driver saw me he let the arrogant man move to the back seat. The driver whispered to me, “I told the guy that you reserved the front seat. So you don’t need to be worried about your seat. It’s yours.” Of course I didn’t make any special reservation, but I appreciated his kindness. Except the arrogant man, all passengers were very nice. After arriving at the desert, we were gathered around our guide/driver and took photos of each other and enjoyed talking. I didn’t need to be worried about being alone.

I enjoyed the camel ride, water pipe, and BBQ. The camels were very calm and nice. The best thing about them was they could kneel down when I got on their back and they could stand up later.

The camel ride was really comfortable for me. I couldn’t walk well on sand but the camel moved smoothly. Also I could enjoy good scenery from their back. I felt like I was a queen in the desert.

About the water pipe, I had no idea about it. I didn’t even know whether I should inhale or exhale when I used the water pipe. I saw bubbles in a bottle, so I exhaled for a while.

However I naturally noticed that exhaling made nothing. I realised I should inhale. I inhaled a bit. The flavour was apple. I’ve never smoked even normal tobacco, so I didn’t know how I could enjoy smoking a water pipe. Anyway I enjoyed the atmosphere.

I actually missed a very important moment. I didn’t notice the sunset. I saw lots of beautiful photos of sunset in the desert. I should have taken wonderful sunset photos there. However when I noticed, it was already dark. I still don’t know why I didn’t notice it.

After becoming dark, a belly dance show started. The dancer was obviously different from the photo on the brochure. On the photo, the dancer was slim and beautiful. However the dancer in front of me was a bit scary. After her dancing, she encouraged everybody to come to the stage and dance together. I was more interested in the BBQ than dancing. So I didn’t join it.

The BBQ dinner wasn’t what I imagined. The staff prepared the BBQ meal and served it on our individual plates. It was like a cafeteria buffet.

But it was an interesting event that over 100 people gathered at one place in the middle of desert for from all over the world. And probably I would never be able to see any of them in future.